


So the goose crosses to the other side

by laughingpineapple



Category: Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Future Fic, Gen, Inscrutable Goosery, True Ending, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21938338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: This story goes in circles, rotations, revolutions. In the far future, a goose gains momentum and slingshots straight through.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	So the goose crosses to the other side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [middnighter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middnighter/gifts).



> ...crack treated seriously, you said? Happy Yuletide!

The bell falls in the ditch with a clear, brilliant ring. As it reaches the bottom and lands on a dozen more bells, the golden sound reverberates, spreading through the trees until the park is silent again, and no-one is around to hear that warning, and the people of the village will forget, over and over again, until a time comes when it is too late. The years pass and the generations with them. Generations of humans, perhaps; surely generations of geese, all perfect, all soft spotless white save for the orange danger of their feet and beaks (again the warning is issued, but not heeded).

Now this goose waddles back to the ditch, golden bell held firmly in her beak. She leans forward to drop her prize in the ditch, lets it go and the clapper barely has time to ring on the border before it lands. Underneath this new bell, hundreds more answer in a feeble echo, muffled by their own mass, and soon fall silent: the ditch is full. The goose waddles tentatively on this glorious golden mantle. The path is clear. She crosses over.

A new path leads away from the other side of the ditch. Is she following an ancient calling? A dream, some deep belonging, revenge so old its bones have turned to stone? What fate guides her footsteps?

At the end of this new path through the woods lies the castle. Its walls have long since fallen into ruin (that erosion is a story as old as time, made of fires, floods, wars; geese, perhaps) but the sheaf of towers at the heart of the fortification still looms proudly over the valley. The goose approaches, raised neck, wings spread out, looming herself against the sharp shadows of the early morning. The air feels still, suspended.

The gate is closed. The centuries-long routine of sentries and inspectors has given way to technology and there is no ticket-seller to goad away from their post, no cashier, no guard. The doors are shiny translucent plastic, computerized, opening and closing at the encrypted whims of faraway security programs that a goose will never reach nor understand. She honks at a camera. The red LED blinks impassive and uncaring as, nearby, owners of digital tickets scan their codes to be allowed into the castle and geese can do no such thing.

For all its servers and monitors, algorithms and networks, cables unreachable underground and waves untouchable in the air, technology ultimately shares the same weakness as any other human endeavour: people. Out in the grassy courtyard, a teacher reminds his young pupils of basic safety and courtesy for their upcoming visit to the archaeological site. He turns around to look at the imposing ruins as he explains its importance and that proves to be his undoing: by the time he turns back to look at the kids, the class is in disarray, one boy is crying, a girl can be seen sprinting off into the distance. Eventually, the group closes ranks again, the teacher grabs his heavy backpack and corrals the kids to the entrance.

He does not notice anything wrong with the content of the backpack.

Neither does the automated security scan, as no-one had trained the neural network to recognize a goose (yet).

The castle’s corridors welcome her. Old stones, deep echoes. The weight of centuries blends with the dust. The goose’s unfettered, unfathomable determination towers over the halls, imposing her will over this place like she brought doom to the miniature castle, like she towered over the miniature’s miniature smaller than the span of her wing, and so she waddles on, elegant, assured, magnificent.

A man-made maze of rooms and stairs is easily crossed. She climbs up past safety barriers, up on crumbling walkways, and once again we must wonder whether it was fate or knowledge that brought her here, atop this tower, or some unthinkable feeling that is the prerogative of geesekind and it is left for us to observe only through the enigmatic veil of their actions.

So the goose makes it to the terrace where the golden bell glimmers in the wintry sunlight. She rears her head back and slams her beak against the metal.

The bell’s ringing echoes throughout the valley. The warning is issued for a final time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] So the goose crosses to the other side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22785097) by [carboncopies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carboncopies/pseuds/carboncopies), [elaineofshalott (LadyofMisrule)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofMisrule/pseuds/elaineofshalott), [secretsofluftnarp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsofluftnarp/pseuds/secretsofluftnarp)




End file.
